Chapter 8
The fight sours his mood for the rest of the day, poking at the back of his mind. And he doesn’t hide it very well. Tim, Duke, and Stephanie all seem to notice his change in mood immediately. To be fair, he’s not exactly subtle. Instead of inhaling his food, he’s simply picked at it for most of lunch.
“Peter, you’re barely eating,” Tim says. “What gives?”
Peter pokes at his meal, eyes unfocused. It isn’t until Steph nudges him with her elbow that he snaps out of it. “Huh? Oh, uh. Just thinking, I guess.”
“You’re upset about gym class?” Duke guesses.
Peter sighs, then nods. “He actually made me lose my temper. That hasn’t happened before.”
Sure, Flash is a massive jerk towards him, but it’s nothing close to the kind of bullying Edison is apparently intent on committing. In fact, Peter’s fairly certain Flash would get in Edison’s face for half of the shit he’s pulled so far. The thing is, Peter normally wouldn’t let it bother him. He’s heard worse comments before, dealt with worse, and shrugged it off easily. So why is Edison bothering him so much now?
It’s the fact that he lost control of his temper, however brief. He let his anger get to him, and that hasn’t happened before. If he’s this trigger happy, should he even try to go back to being Spider-Man? What happens the next time someone says something to him and he snaps? Crooks and thugs aren’t exactly gentle with their words, and if he can’t handle relatively harmless jeers from some spoiled rich kid, he has no business doing any crime fighting. Spider-Man doesn’t kill, but he just might if Peter’s temper is that fragile. Maybe he shouldn’t be Spider-Man; maybe he should just focus on figuring out a way to get home instead. Leave Gotham to itself and use the suit to travel across the city at night.
“That would be ideal,” Loki says dryly.
“He’s been trying to pick a fight with you for weeks,” Duke points out. “He was bound to hit a sore spot and piss you off eventually, Pete. You handled it perfectly.”
“Yeah, if that’s you ‘losing your temper’ then I don’t want to see you go into a berserk rage,” Tim adds jokingly, stirring his coffee as Duke takes a massive bite of his burger. This is Tim’s fourth coffee of the day, Peter notes, and he’s a little concerned by that.
Peter frowns. That’s the last thing he wants, too. If he ever truly lost his temper, became furious beyond all control, he could level the city within hours and nobody would be capable of stopping him. He’s strong enough for that. Powerful enough. And that knowledge terrifies him on some level; you have to be careful and responsible with the kind of strength he has. Otherwise you’re just a monster.
“It wouldn’t be good,” Peter says, feeling oddly sick at the thought. Acting selfishly with his powers had caused his Uncle Ben’s death.
“Stop worrying about something that won’t happen. You're not a monster, Peter,” Sam says.
Duke looks up from his meal and glances around, frowning in confusion. Tim stays focused on Peter. “Peter, you got annoyed with a guy who’s been a massive asshole to you for weeks, and instead of pummeling him into a fine paste, you just scared the hell out of him. You stood up for yourself and no one got hurt. That’s the best possible outcome.”
“As a bonus, he’s been mildly tolerable ever since you knocked sense into him,” Steph adds. “He won the match and lost against you in a fight, and that seems to be causing some kind of short circuit in his brain.”
“Doesn’t take much,” Duke mutters.
The bell rings, and Peter sighs, standing up. He grabs a bread roll and takes a bite of it.
* * *
Class drags on. He idly rubs his hand and drifts for most of it. He may not have actually landed a hit on Edison, but he did strike the boy’s gloves a few times. Even that’s enough to cause his hand discomfort. Dammit, the bones are healed, why is it giving him so much trouble?
“You haven’t had a chance to heal fully yet,” Shuri says.
That’s a disturbing thought. Sure, he’s been stressed, and he’s not sleeping well, and he’s not eating well--
“Oh, is that all,” Bucky mutters.
But his healing factor should still work. Why isn’t it working?
“You died. I’m no doctor, but I’m pretty damn sure that even Cap himself would need a month or two to get right from that,” Fury says.
Huh. That makes sense. Peter isn’t sure what kind of healing factor Cap has. He does know Tony compared their eating habits and informed him he eats nearly as much or more than Cap does when he visited the Compound. He's definitely not getting that kind food in Gotham.
Class ends with the teacher mentioning something about a school spirit day next week. Peter isn’t paying attention. Someone drops something on his desk as the final bell rings, startling him out of his thoughts. He looks down at the desk and sees a bag of chips, then looks up and finds himself face to face with Duke who grins and shrugs.
“I figured you’d be starving by now. You headed home? I could use some company on the subway.”
“Subway? I thought you, Tim, and Steph all rode together,” Peter says, shrugging on his backpack and grabbing the bag of chips. He tears open the packet and grabs a chip. It’s empty calories, but at this point any calories would do him some good.
“Yeah, usually Steph drops me off at my job after school, but I’m going to visit my cousin and some friends over in the Narrows with Tim tonight,” Duke says, hooking a thumb in his pocket. “It’s quicker to take a subway over to that part of Gotham. The bridges are a nightmare for traffic.”
“Uh, yeah. I don’t mind the company,” Peter says. This almost feels rehearsed. “Let’s go.”
Duke grins. “Come on, there’s a diner we can stop at, too. I know you’re starving.”
“Is it that obvious?” Peter asks, walking with him out into the hall. People move out of Duke’s way, and more than a few of them throw grins his way. Peter’s a little jealous of that; Duke is indisputably a cool kid at school, which makes his friendship with Peter all the stranger.
“Only because I know how much you usually eat,” Duke replies, waving at Tim when they reach the front entrance. “Come on, you’re overdue for a trip to Batburger.”
Peter makes a face. “That can’t possibly be a real place.”
Duke grins.
* * *
Batburger is, in fact, a very real place. It’s a theme restaurant, and that theme is Batman, his friends, and his villains. Peter gawks at the uniforms, the cheesy names, and the cheap decorations and briefly wonders if something similar exists back home. But the food isn’t actually all that bad. He’s definitely had worse burgers, and the fries are cooked to perfection. He can’t complain about that. For a moment, his sour mood is pushed back.
Tim drops a kid’s meal box in front of Peter just as he finishes off his third cheeseburger. “Time for the family tradition. Here. You get a free action figure. It’s a mystery set this time.”
Peter, amused, grabs the box. “Gee, thanks. I wonder who I’ll get at Batburger.”
“You might be surprised,” Tim says, stirring a fresh cup of coffee.
“How many of those have you had today?” Peter asks, pulling out the toy packet. It’s pretty big for a knock off happy meal toy.
Tim lifts up his cup, pauses, squints, and takes a mental count. “Six.”
“That is beyond unhealthy,” Peter says.
Tim shrugs and downs half of his cup in one go.
Duke rolls his eyes. “One day he’s going to try and cut back on his caffeine intake and collapse from the withdrawal.”
“Hasn’t happened yet,” Tim remarks. “And it won’t happen. If you try to serve me decaf again, I’ll dump a bottle of Dick’s old itching powder in your sock drawer.”
“His what?” Duke asks.
“He used to prank Alfred as a kid,” Tim explains. “I found his old stash inside his closet. Itching powder, whoopie cushions, hand buzzers, the works.”
“Why were you in his closet?”
“Because I’m nosy,” Tim says patiently. “And he owes me twenty bucks.”
“Tim, we’re rich.”
“It’s the principle of the thing, Duke.”
Peter hides a grin, popping open the toy package and pulling out a tiny, borderline cheap model of Nightwing. The toy wears a cheesy grin and holds a kali stick in each hand. Peter’s never seen Nightwing with weapons before, but that doesn’t mean they’re not somewhere in his suit; Nightwing’s a pretty big guy. Otherwise, the suit seems true to life.
“Hey, congrats, you got the coolest one,” Tim says.
“Signal’s cooler,” Duke says.
Tim rolls his eyes at that, but only smirks in response, casting a glance through the window. Peter examines the little Nightwing toy, amused by it, and then tucks it away inside his blazer. He used to carry around a similar figure when he was a kid. A little Iron Man toy he had picked up at the Stark Expo, shortly before Iron Man saved his life. He’d considered it a good luck charm at the time. Maybe Nightwing will serve the same purpose in Gotham. His mood is a little lighter, at least. But that could just as easily come from the food. He ends up eating three meals’ worth of food: burgers, fries, two milkshakes, and a small apple pie.
Duke and Tim seem content to chat with each other while he eats enough food to sustain himself for the next week. They also pay for it without thinking; Peter feels a bit guilty about that, but he’s too hungry to care. He’ll pay them back after he gets his next check. He’s polishing off the apple pie--not the best he’s ever had, and definitely not something that measures up to Aunt May’s--when he notices a sleek red sports car pull in front of the restaurant. Tim and Duke go still, staring daggers at it, and it takes Peter a moment to figure out why.
Edison Bright sits in his sports car, staring daggers into the restaurant. Judging by the way his eyes roam across the front of it, he can’t actually see inside. At least, not past the foggy mist that seems to just hover close to the ground of Gotham City this time of year. Duke stares daggers at Edison, and starts to get up. Tim reaches up and grips his shoulder.
“Don’t,” Tim says. “He’s looking for an excuse.”
“I’m happy to give him one,” Duke mutters, but sits back down. His eyes never leave Edison.
“He’d just run from you,” Tim adds. “Like he’s doing now.”
And Edison is moving. He eases his shiny sports car back onto the street and then revs the engine a few times, loud enough to rattle the windows of the burger place, before tearing off down the street with a squeal of wet slick tires. And then it clicks for Peter. Duke and Tim didn’t just happen to need the subway today. Steph could have easily driven them over to the Narrows despite the traffic; they walked with Peter specifically to buy him dinner and protect him from Edison Bright.
Peter boggles at that. This is something Ned would do for him, without a second thought, and he wishes suddenly that Tim and Duke could meet him.
“Hey, Peter, why don’t you come home with us?” Tim says, breaking Peter out of his thoughts.
“You can swing by the Narrows with us first and meet some friends of mine, and then stay over with us,” Duke adds.
Peter shakes his head. He’d love to sleep in an actual bed, but he needs to finish his spider suit. Without the suit, he can’t start working out how to get home: he needs the suit to be able to track down the person that keeps pinging his spider senses. “Sorry, guys. Not tonight.”
Tim seems disappointed by that. “Next time, then.”
“Yeah, definitely,” Peter says, standing up and gathering his trash. It’s pretty sizable; he really did a number on the menu here. “Thanks for the meal, guys. I’ll pay you back sometime, promise. See you at school tomorrow!”
Tim and Duke wave after him. Peter can’t help but notice the pinched, worried look they share when he turns his back to them and leaves the restaurant.
* * *
BATCHAT
Duke (11:10pm): he was holding back during that fight
Duke (11:11pm): he’s much faster than I thought
Duke (11:11pm): not Flash fast, but really quick
Tim (11:13pm): another power?
Duke (11:15pm): maybe. I saw this hazy sort of person fighting with him, too. Not a ghost. It was like a memory? like an echo. Peter was mimicking all of his moves.
Tim (11:16pm): interesting
Dick (11:20pm): Guys, I need a favor and I really need you to not comment on it.
Dick (11:21pm): Can someone please bring me pants
Dick (11:22pm): There was an...incident during patrol tonight.
Dick (11:22pm): Do NOT tell Bruce about this
Tim Drake screenshot this.
Dick (11:23pm): Come on, man
* * *
Peter sleeps well that night, but his sour mood still lingers. He’s starting to wonder if it’s more than the fight that’s bothering him. He tries not to think about it and keeps his head down in school, moving from class to class with as little input as possible. The day passes by in a gray blur for most of it, but he snaps out of it briefly when he gets lunch and walks over to Tim and Duke’s table. They’re hunched over a piece of paper, bickering with one another. Neither of them looks up when Peter sits down beside them and starts to eat his lunch.
“No, that’s--that’s way too much,” Tim protests. “There’s no way he’d be able to bend as much as he needs without breaking something--”
“He needs some armor,” Duke insists.
Peter leans over to peer over Tim’s shoulder, curious as to what they’re arguing about. His eyes scan the page, first in confusion, and then in shock. They’re designing armor. This is for a suit. Peter blinks, squinting at the hastily written computation in the corner. It’s clearly written by someone who isn't used to wiring up power inside a suit. Or, at least, as much power. They're close, but it's such a mess...
“Yeah, but that means he needs wires and circuits and--”
"This is wrong," he says suddenly, interrupting Duke and Tim. He taps one of the circuit diagrams. "The resistance is too much for a portable battery to function efficiently. Are you designing a super suit?"
Duke and Tim go quiet, giving him curious and shocked looks. Clearly they didn’t expect to be caught in the middle of this.
"That's a good guess. We're working on a new one for Nightwing," Duke says. “His suit got shredded last night on patrol, and his fan club is helping him build a new one.”
“They’re lying,” Bucky says.
They are. He doesn’t know why they’re lying to him, but they are. Peter quirks a brow at Duke before grabbing Tim’s pen and pulling the paper over to himself. He rewrites the calculations and draws a completely different circuit plan throughout the whole suit; he's using a circuit model Tony taught him months ago, and an older design at that. Tim and Duke crowd around him, watching him work. When Peter starts to speak, he can hear hints of Tony in his own voice.
"You have too much of everything in this equation. Start over and use this first. Keep the concept simple. You can add redundancies later. In fact, you’ll need them in case one fails during patrol, and they usually will," Peter says.
His sketch is basically an older version of the suit Tony first built for him. No Karen, no web shooters, and none of the fancy bells and whistles Tony usually puts into a suit. Peter only needs the basics for himself, and Nightwing clearly doesn’t need them. So he keeps it minimal; health monitoring, a HUD for the mask, a specific weave for the joints of the suit to handle constant use and stress.
"Use this,” Peter continues, adding a small calculation to the edge of the page before marking off specific points on the suit. “Nightwing’s an acrobat, so this will give him room to move and bend all weird without breaking anything electronic. Armor’s a little tricky, but you might be able to find a stronger fabric weave to at least help deflect knives."
“You did that pretty quick,” Tim says, impressed.
“I like designing things. Who doesn’t design a super suit when they’re a kid?” Peter says. “I just have more practical experience after a few engineering classes, that’s all.”
Granted, that practical experience comes from building his suits in Tony’s lab, and those engineering classes were run by Rhodey and Tony, who are both genius engineers. But it’s technically the truth.
“That’s true,” Duke says, grinning. “I used to draw Batman’s suit all the time when I was a kid. Every kid in Gotham did.”
“So did I,” Tim adds after a moment’s thought. He’s still giving Peter a curious look, but continues. “I think I gave him functional bat wings in one design.”
“That’d be cool,” Duke says thoughtfully. “His cape’s way too iconic, though.”
Peter finishes off the sketch and leans back to look at his handiwork. It's passable. Good enough for five minutes of effort, at least. He caps the pen, puts it back on the table, and immediately digs into his lunch. Maybe Spider-Man won’t come to Gotham, but he can still help in other ways. Nightwing’s suit, for example. Assuming he pays attention to this fan club of his and accepts suit designs, anyway. Tony never did.
He doesn’t notice Tim snap a pic of the schematic before tucking it into his backpack. And he misses the significant look Tim and Duke share with one another. That grey fog from before is easing back into his mood.
* * *
BATCHAT
Dick (01:12pm): Hey, this looks great. Did you guys design this during your lunch?
Tim (01:13pm): Peter did all of it. I knew the guy was smart, but he might be a certified genius. He took one look and had a whole system sketched out within a minute.
Tim (01:13pm): We need to test a few things out, but the suit looks more than viable.
Dick (01:14pm): Wow. Wait. Aren’t you still in school? Pay attention to class!
Tim (01:15pm): don’t be a nerd, Grayson
* * *
The weight of it all starts to catch up to Peter later that week when he finds himself shivering inside the fire house. He crawls in through the window, tosses his backpack across the room to the tarp hiding his bed from view, and gently thumps his head against the wall. He stays like that for a long moment. God, what he wouldn’t give to be able to make a phone call back home. He doesn’t know what’s happening there, if anything is happening, or how to get home. He can just imagine the reaction he’d get from Happy (god, Peter hopes Happy is okay) if he called.
“Hi, Happy,” he mutters against the filthy wall. “I’d really appreciate it if you could pick me up and take me to my aunt. Or Ned’s house. Or MJ’s. Or Rhodey. Or Tony. Or Vision. Frankly, I wouldn’t mind if you dropped me into whatever super secret hideout the Black Widow is hiding in. She’s terrifying, but I’m like ninety-nine percent sure she wouldn’t kill me. At least, not until she got to know me.”
There is, of course, no answer, and he feels rather silly muttering at a dirty wall. He sighs, leaning back and rubbing his eyes. That weird grey feeling is still lingering around him, muffling his emotions and smothering him at the same time. The constant grind of school, starvation, homework, and work is getting to him. It must be. There’s no other reason--
His eyes focus on the day planner the school gave him at the start of the year, and the reason for his sour mood is readily explained: the anniversary of Ben’s death is this weekend. He must have subconsciously picked up on it sometime after the fight with Edison. That was just the tipping point. And this year he doesn’t have May to lean on. Or Ned.
He sighs, skipping the work on his spider suit for the night in favor of curling up in bed. It’s a little too cold to do anything else, and he’s still feeling conflicted by the whole Spider-Man thing. And he has work tomorrow.
* * *
Peter wakes up to a steady, freezing rain on Saturday. The temperature has turned unseasonably cold, plunging the temperatures down to near freezing. He eats a half frozen protein bar for breakfast, takes the quickest shower of his life, and then heads for the nearest cafe to grab a hot chocolate to nurse for the few hours before his shift starts. He slips into the restaurant with a quiet greeting, pulls on his apron and gets to work. There’s an odd tension to the air, and Omar keeps glancing at the clock and the back door. Peter ignores it. He’s got too much on his mind.
He’s so caught up in his own thoughts that he’s functioning on instinct and habit alone while he works. That’s not an issue when he’s handling dishes in the back of the restaurant by himself. It becomes an issue when a man with a black skull mask pushes open the door to the alley beside Peter and walks into the restaurant, gun handle glinting beneath his suit jacket.
Instinct takes over, and Peter’s moving before he fully realizes what’s happening. One moment, the man with the gun lurches into view, the next Peter is standing over him, flinging the gun away and kicking him hard across the face, snapping the mask in half. The man crumples to the ground in a wordless heap, just like every other thug Peter’s taken on before. The guy really didn’t stand a chance.
“Good reaction time,” Fury says idly.
Omar rushes into the back. When he sees Peter standing over the unconscious man’s form, his eyes go wide.
“Oh, no,” Omar says weakly. “Peter, what did you do?”
Peter frowns at him. “He had a gun! He was going to rob--”
Something heavy and metallic slams against the base of Peter’s skull, just beneath his ear. It’s hard enough to send him sprawling to the ground with stars in his eyes. He rolls over, disoriented, and finds himself staring up at a crowd of other men wearing pressed suits and black skull masks. All of them are armed, some with clubs, others with guns, and approximately none of them look too pleased with Peter. That’s fine, he’s taken on guys like this before--
Omar puts himself between Peter and the masked men, hands raised. “Wait! Wait, stop! He didn’t know! He’s new! Please, don’t hurt him.”
“New employee, huh,” the biggest one says. He points a meaty finger at Peter. “You know the rule, Omar. If anyone--anyone--hurts one of the False Facers, the price is taken out in blood. We run the protection racket here, and that includes protecting ourselves.”
“No, no, please. He’s just some kid, he thought we were being robbed--” Omar stammers.
“Omar--” Peter starts, standing up. He sways a bit, but catches his balance quick. He can feel the bruise forming, and the burning itch from his healing factor kicking in.
Omar whirls on him and hisses, “Shut up, I’m trying to save your life.”
Peter stutters into silence, reaching up to rub the back of his head. He finds a knot there and winces. Omar looks like he’s about to faint from panic; Peter keeps silent.
The man in the black mask--the False Facer--chuckles. “Tell you what, we’ll make it even another way. Get rid of the kid and take the beating yourself.”
“What--” Peter starts.
“Done,” Omar says, gripping Peter and roughly shoving him past the gangsters towards the alley. Peter starts to fight him, Omar pushes him harder. “Peter, you’re fired. I’m sorry, but--”
“Omar, I need this job--”
“They’ll killyou,” Omar retorts. He won’t look Peter in the eye. “Listen, if it’s safe, I’ll try to leave some food out, but you can’t work here, okay?”
With a final shove, he pushes Peter out into the alley and slams the door. Peter stares at it in blank shock when the lock slides home. And then the beating begins. He can’t just kick in the door and start cracking heads together. Not without causing a bigger scene than he already has and blowing his cover wide open.
The rain picks up, falling hard and fast enough to drown out almost everything else. Peter eyes the roof of the restaurant, considers jumping on top of it--
“If you do that, Omar and Sophia are the ones who’ll pay for it,” Bucky says quietly.
And that’s an excellent point. Sure, Peter could barge in, expose himself as a freaky brawler capable of taking down an entire squad of mafia men. But that will just put a target on Omar and Sophia’s backs. Not to mention his own. Peter knows enough about Gotham to know that various mobs and gangs run the show in Crime Alley, and anyone bucking that trend disappears. The nail that stands out gets hammered down and all that.
Growling in frustration, he kicks a trashcan over and stalks back towards home.
* * *
It rains that night. Hard and constant and miserable. The leaks in the roof of the warehouse guarantee the floor is damp and chill. He shivers, half awake, and partially damp. Peter ends up sleeping curled up in a ball under the tarp to avoid the leaking roof.
At some point, he falls into a true sleep. When he wakes, he’s laying in warm grass, warm and at ease. He sits up, frowns in confusion, and then stumbles up onto his feet, looking around.
"Ah, I was hoping you would join me next," a man says behind him. His voice is accented, warm and regal.
Peter turns to face him. T'Challa, King of Wakanda, stands beneath an ancient tree. The branches above his head glint with curious golden eyes, and living shadows move among them. The ground is covered in thick, green prairie grass tall enough to tickle Peter's palms. And above them there’s an endless sea of stars set against an aurora of purple and blue.
"What is this place?" Peter asks, walking up to him.
"The Ancestral home. What comes after," T'Challa replies, strolling over to stand in front of Peter. "A Wakandan king never truly dies. His wisdom lives on, to inspire and lead from afar, if need be, so he goes here to share that wisdom with the next king or queen. I visited this place when I first became king and it became a part of myself. I find myself wandering through it while I sleep. When I need time away from the others in the Stone, I go here. Sometimes with Shuri, though she has her own private area as well.”
“Oh,” Peter responds dumbly. He looks around the majestic field again and feels sorely out of place. This is not a place meant for someone like him, and he's very aware of that fact.
“Be proud of yourself, Peter,” T’Challa continues. “This is a land of Kings and Queens, welcoming you as a guest."
Peter freezes, his brain finally catching up to the fact that he’s standing near royalty, and, after a brief panic, starts to bow. T'Challa gently presses his hand against Peter's shoulder, stopping him cold.
"There's no need for that," he says gently. "I may be a king, but we are equals here, brothers in arms. We are both Avengers."
"Oh. Y-yeah, I guess so," Peter replies, unsure. He’s definitely not equal to T'Challa. There’s a reserved nobility in the way the man carries himself that Peter knows he’ll never be able to match. Arguing the point seems rude, however, so he keeps his mouth shut. He stops, looking around.
The savannah is warm, and dry. The wind sweeps across the prairie grass, and distant birds call to one another in the moonlit night. Distant blue-black clouds scuttle across the sky, never dimming the aura or the stars glittering above. In the distance, a city glimmers beneath the watchful gaze of a massive stone panther, at peace with the landscape around it. There's such a feeling of contentment and peace that Peter knows, somewhere deep inside, he'll hunt for this feeling for the rest of his life.
T'Challa regards him silently for a moment, then seems to come to a conclusion. "Walk with me, Peter. I would like to show you my home.”
With that, he turns and walks through the grass towards the city. Peter follows him, his head on a swivel, looking at all of the sights and sounds of the Wakandan homeland. They walk in silence, moving past deceptively humble border villages on their way to the city. Eventually, T’Challa motions for Peter to walk alongside him, and Peter hurries to move to his right, walking beside him.
“You doubt yourself,” T’Challa says after a few minutes.
“Always,” Peter says.
T'Challa tilts his head. “Well. You are honest with yourself. In some respects, at least.”
“What do you mean?”
“You are often your harshest critic. And your doubt is a double edged sword.”
“I can’t risk getting an ego. Not with this kind of power,” Peter retorts.
T’Challa says nothing, tilting his head in acknowledgement.
Panthers follow them, stalking among the trees, the buildings, the prairie. Peter never feels threatened by them, but he does keep note. After awhile, the more silent and stealthy panthers realize he can see them. It becomes a game; they sneak in as close as they can before Peter notices, then they duck away. He catches them more often than not, but a few of the sleeker, thinner panthers come close enough to tap him with their paw before darting away.
T'Challa notices, too. He chuckles.
Peter looks up at him. “Oh, uh, I'm paying attention, honest---”
“The Dora Milaje test their recruits by stalking them in this way. It is training and a game all in one. Okoye did the same to me when we were children, many times.” He nods to the small group of panthers stalking them in the grass. If not for his heightened senses, Peter wouldn’t know they were there at all. “It seems you’ve earned their approval as well as their interest.”
"Oh, good. I'd prefer that,” Peter says.
"Oh?"
"Yeah, I’d like to stay on the good side of immortal panther warriors who can eat me."
That earns him an amused look from the King. "You learn quickly. One of my favorite games growing up was to tease Okoye endlessly. She was very efficient about showing me where the line was drawn."
“She beat up the King of Wakanda?” Peter asks, tilting his head.
“She beat up her very foolish friend who happened to be of royal blood,” T'Challa corrects, still with that amused smirk. He stops at the steps of what is unmistakably a grand palace. It’s style is nothing like the European castles and stately manors Peter’s seen, but he can recognize a place of government when he sees one. "And it was well earned. Okoye is wise with her violence. And that is something you lack.”
Peter looks up at T’Challa, frowning. “Wisdom?”
“In regards to your strength, yes. That isn’t surprising. You are young in your abilities,” T’Challa says, clasping his hands behind his back. “You don’t think that you can aid the people of Gotham.”
“Yeah,” Peter admits, rubbing the back of his head. “Gotham is different from New York. People need help, sure, but I’m not sure if I can help, you know? There’s a dozen people doing what I do here, and they’ve been doing it longer than I have. Wouldn’t it be better if I left it to them?”
“How many of them have you seen in your neighborhood?” T'Challa asks.
Peter stops cold. He hasn’t seen them in his neighborhood. Nightwing swings through, but it’s almost always while on the way to the latest disaster in another part of the city. Red Robin is probably still out of commission, and he was clearly in over his head the last time he came through. Signal sticks to the Narrows, mostly, and has never ventured far into Crime Alley minus that time he said he was covering for Nightwing. Spoiler and Batgirl patrol together, and they seem to focus on the docks near Old Gotham. No one knows where Batman is; his patrols vary widely, and lately he’s been all over the place.
No one is focusing on little guy stuff. No one’s returning stolen purses or lost bikes. No one is doing anything to stop the almost daily muggings. No one is standing up to groups like the False Facers. No one is helping Omar or Sophia or any of the other decent people that try to get by. Sure, the Bat crew swings through the Bowery and Crime Alley, and he’s met them on the rooftops, but that’s just it. He’s met them on the rooftops. You can't stop a street level crime from twenty storeys up.
T'Challa raises an eyebrow, waiting for Peter’s answer.
“I guess there’s room for Spider-Man here. At least until I figure out how to get home. And it would make things easier, too. I can’t really investigate the city if it’s constantly on fire, and people might be able to help me when they aren’t constantly trying to survive,” Peter says thoughtfully. “May always says that if you help someone, you help everyone, at least in a roundabout kind of way.”
“Your aunt is a wise woman,” T'Challa says.
“She’s the best. I owe her everything,” Peter says.
T'Challa smiles. “Perhaps she could meet my mother one day, when this is all over. I think you would both enjoy Wakanda.”
Peter pauses, taking a moment to mentally fanboy over the fact that the Black Panther just invited him over to visit. “I have to warn you, I might be completely obnoxious if that happens.”
“I grew up with Shuri. I am well used to obnoxious behavior.”
Peter grins a little. T’Challa returns it.
“We walk similar paths,” T'Challa says. “It is not an easy one, and it will be full of pain.”
“I know.”
"It is hard for a good man to live such a life. But I think that it will be worth it. For now, you should rest." He offers Peter his hand and clasps forearms with him. "Until we meet again, Spider-Man."
“Thank you, T'Challa.”
Peter wakes up slowly, gradually. He’s completely at ease in his makeshift bed, and he wakes feeling refreshed for the first time since he came to Gotham. His dreams, when he thinks of them, leave behind only a sense of a firm resolve and relief.
* * *
He spends the next day hard at work and finishes his suit just as the sun begins to set. It's not the Iron Spider, but it's got enough sensors and electronics to get him by. He just needs the web fluid indicator, compass, and the map of Gotham. Those are easily enough done, even with his limited supplies and coding skill. The most tedious part is hand sewing everything, and that doesn't bother him much when he has the radio or a book on hand. That goes double when he’s not busy with work.
And then he finishes it. It isn't his best work, but it's worlds above the sweatpants and hoodie he used in Queens a lifetime ago. It’s blue and red, with a gray webbing pattern across the whole of it, and the fat red spider across the back from the first suit Tony built for him.
It takes him no time at all to put the suit on. The moment the mask hits home, he all but sighs in relief. He can’t believe he almost gave this up. A quick jump out of the nearest window and a carefully placed web sling later, and he's resting on top of the building, balanced on a rusted HVAC system in the steady rain of the Gotham night. On the anniversary of his uncle’s death, Spider-Man returns.
"All right, Gotham. Let's see what you've got for me."